There has always been a mystery surrounding Charles Darwin: how did this quiet, respectable gentleman, a pillar of his parish, come to embrace one of the most radical ideas in the history of human thought? It's difficult to overstate just what Darwin was risking in publishing his theory of evolution. As Darwin biographers Adrian Desmond and James Moore argue here, it could only have been a moral cause that motivated him—in this case a passionate hatred of slavery. They draw on a wealth of fresh manuscripts, unpublished family correspondence, notebooks, diaries, and ships' logs to show how Darwin's abolitionism had deep roots in his mother's family and was reinforced by his voyage on the Beagle as well as by events in America—from the rise of scientific racism at Harvard through the dark days of the Civil War.

"Particularly eye opening is the surprising connection between Darwin's theory and the Christian abolition movement as they together fought a scientific community that rejected the Christian belief that all mankind was descended from a single pair. The story of that unlikely alliance is fascinating to follow, full of colorful characters both noble and vile, revealing how science and religion were debased by the evil of racism."—BookPage